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New Mexico State University

Let's Go Fishing

The Digital Desert Library is a data base filled with information about animals and plant life that live in the Chihuahuan Desert. This desert is located in the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. Each of the animals that live there has unique features.

Get to know some interesting facts about fish by reading the clues below and then using the DDL database to search for the answers. Write each answer in the space provided. (There may be more than one correct answer for some questions). Happy Fishing!!

  1. A fish that travels in "schools" and eats minnows: _____________
  2. This fish is considered a "pest" because it goes around eating other fish eggs, uprooting vegetation, and stirring up the waters and making them muddy: _____________
  3. A fish that has a film or "wall" over its eye: _____________
  4. This fish has the nickname "millions fish" because it produces so many babies all year: _____________
  5. A pretty fish that is considered one of the best angling fish (a term for fly fishing) by sportsmen and is very tasty to eat: _____________
  6. A fish that is easy to catch because it is attracted to lights: _____________
  7. A fish that can live in water hotter than 100 degrees Fahrenheit and in water six times saltier that many ocean fish: _____________
  8. A fish that is used to control mosquitoes: _____________
  9. This fish looks like a snake and breeds only in the ocean: _____________
  10. A fish that can live in saltwater or fresh water: _____________
  11. This fish can survive where other trout have disappeared: _____________
  12. A fish that is often called a "freshwater shark" because it aggressively hunts for other fish: _____________
  13. A fish that originally came from China and is used in the United States to control the growth of vegetation: _____________
  14. This fish is very colorful and has large colorful ear flaps: _____________
  15. A fish that chooses a "home" pool and will live there for a very long time: _____________
  16. Many of these fish will survive in the moist sand of a dried up stream and wait until water returns: _____________
  17. This fish is so fun to catch by fishermen that huge fishing tournaments are held to catch it: _____________
  18. A fish that is sometimes called a "cold water buffalo": _____________
  19. This fish has little whiskers called barbels: _____________
  20. A type of herring fish that gets its name from its stomach: _____________
  21. A tiny little Mollusk that lives in permanent desert springs: _____________
  22. A fish that has become extinct in many areas because Mosquito fish will eat them: _____________
  23. A fish that when young likes to live around a lot of vegetation, but when it gets older it prefers to live in open waters: _____________
  24. A fish whose vertebrae grow in a ball-and- socket arrangement just like the vertebrae of a reptile: _____________
  25. The most common bait fish in the United States: _____________

This activity was created by Debbie Franzoy.